


check the grin, you're in love

by mukaismom



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, rated T for swears thats all, tobins clueless per the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 10:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12792579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mukaismom/pseuds/mukaismom
Summary: sometimes, Gray's gotta do what Tobin won't.





	check the grin, you're in love

**Author's Note:**

> all i knew going into this is that i wanted more graybin content, so plot who??? it's just really sappy because i want them to be as happy as possible :)
> 
> always down for feedback or someone pointing out glaring errors lol. don't let me embarrass myself like that y'all

Tobin hates Rigel. It's cold and mountainous, and he can feel the dry tension in the air. The only redeeming quality Rigel seems to have are the hotsprings that've popped up everywhere along the army's path. But today, they’ve made the only encampment in Rigel without a hot spring when Tobin needs a wash the most.

A few breadcrumbs fall off his shirt as he takes it off by the river. He doesn’t really care—he’s more worried about the layers of grime covering his hands and face after a week of travel. Besides, Ever since Ram, he’s stuffed objects into his clothes. Bread chunks in between his overalls and shirt, notes in his collar, an occasional smushed orange in his quiver. “Tobin-man, that’s disgusting,” Gray would tell him. Tobin would frown, punch Gray’s arm, and then agree with a laugh.

It was nice then, to worry about smushed oranges and his graceless public image. He finds it harder and harder to care about either out in the middle of who-knows-where Rigel. Out here, it was freezing. He hadn’t seen an orange in how long—months? A year? He doesn’t even like oranges, really, but as he breathes in all he can smell is the sweet, musty fruit rotting white in green grass.

Those were good days, the ones with that scent. It meant long warmth near at the lake by Ram, stealing sips of flat water as the sun hit its peak, and Gray’s mother’s cooking (lots of thick bread slices with ham; she knew that was Tobin’s favorite). If he thought hard enough, he could vaguely remember when all his friends, including Faye, could skinny dip with only one of Tobin’s siblings to watch them. Carefree. Genuinely carefree.

Of course in his nostalgia, Tobin overlooks the droughts, squabbles and heat-madness of Ram in Avistym. Sometimes, it got so hot all anyone could do was gather by the lake underneath tree-shade. Other times, the sick and weak were discovered dead in their beds the next day.

Instead, the frigid breeze ghosting his skin occupies Tobin. It is not yet snowing, but he can feel the bite as he continues to strip off the rest of his clothes. He stops every few seconds to rub his arms and swear at the weather. It was never this exhausting to take a bath in Ram. Tobin wonders that maybe this is what it’s like when you step far enough from Mila’s light.

All this cold makes Tobin want to sleep. Sleep and wake up back in Ram, or sleep and wake up dead. Maybe both.

He sits back on the river bed, feet planted to keep his place and used the bucket to dowse his head in river water. It is freezing, like the rest of Rigel. He can’t feel his feet, and his hands are sure to follow. He doesn’t bother scrubbing dirt off his nails before he grabs the huge piece of cotton cloth he brought from Ram.

There are regulation towels, for sure, but they were low on supplies so Tobin figured he might as well use it. Plus, if he remembers hard enough, he can detect the sharp scent of lye on the fabric that his mother used to scrub grass stains off his clothes after messing around with Gray and Alm and Kliff. Mostly Gray, he realizes, but he doesn’t need to think nearly as hard to remember that. His mothers had been close friends since childhood, and that passed right off to Tobin and Gray.

He remembers their mothers talking over the laundry baskets—this was back when his mother had her old yellow hair kerchief—and the feel of the dirt on his toes. He and Gray were so close to the ground then, so it was easier to rip out wads of grass and rocky dirt and throw them at each other. That would continue for a few seconds before one of their mothers would yell about soiling the laundry water (usually before anything had been cleaned), and giggling and a little guilty, the two would dash off to another part of the village to join Alm, Kliff and Faye in mock battle.

One time, Gray ripped off an orange branch sword, which Tobin wanted immediately. Gray told him to rip his own but he was afraid to do it in front of Kliff’s mother’s house, so he ran a little deeper into the orchard and came back with a softer branch that wagged a little when he brandished it. Alm won, with Gray a little behind.

Tobin remembers years later when Gray grew serious about fighting. It was Avistym. He remembers the smell of oranges, but he doesn’t know if Gray was eating one, if they were by an orange tree, or both. And he remembers how Gray smelled, even if he doesn't know what to call it—some kind of wood, when you breathe in and the scent of the forest is all around you. It was some kind of scented water Gray’s father had grabbed on a trip to a nearby town, and Gray, eager to impress village girls, nearly spilled the entire bottle over his wrists. It gives Tobin a headache to remember, but he also remembers how nice it smelled in careful, small whiffs.

And that day, this wood-smelling, girl-crazy bastard had slung his arm around Tobin and said, “You know Tobes, I don’t think I’d mind grabbin’ my sword and getting out of this place.”

Tobin snorted. “What, you mean like a mercenary?”

“Sure, if that’s what it’s called when you go out and give some bandits what’s comin’ to ‘em.” In Tobin’s mind, Gray bites an apple, but there are no apples in Avistym.

“I mean—” Tobin squirmed a little to loosen up Gray’s tight grip. He was too strong then, and didn’t know how to hold back. He’s still sometimes like that now. “—it’s when you get paid to fight people. But like, not an army yaknow? So if the people paying you hate bandits, then yes.”

Gray whistled. “Sounds great. You gonna come with me then? I mean, I know I’m a helluva lot better than you at fighting, but the offer’s open.”

Tobin shoved his elbow into Gray’s side. “I could kick your ass in archery any day, dickhead.” Slouching back a little, Tobin said, “but c’mon. That’s never going to happen.”

Gray turned a little to look Tobin in the eyes. “Damn Tobone, I was just messin’ around a little. I wasn’t really gonna do that.”

Tobin doesn’t remember what he said next, but now, it’s perfectly clear to him. Tobin’s clueless and kind of a dumbass, but he knows it, and he realizes his mistakes, if a little late. Coincidentally, now.

Gray really had wanted to leave—to go out and have these grand adventures. He hadn’t grown out of his little childhood dreams, but maybe, Tobin thinks, just maybe, he’d numbed them. He’d numbed them and only told Tobin about it, even then as a joke, and Tobin had put him down and told him it was impossible.

And even though here they were: part-way through Rigel in some war their friend since childhood had started, Tobin can’t help but feel guilty that he’d dampened any dream of Gray’s, no matter how suppressed, or even how fulfilled it was at this point.

On shore, Tobin straps his overalls on over his shirt and pants and begins to pull up his boots when he double takes. He brings the ankle-hole of his left boot to eye level and sure enough: it’s empty, to which he thinks, oh shit, it’s empty, and then shoots to his feet even as his feet turn cold-crisp on the edge of the river. The note’s gone, the one his mother shoved in his boot right before he left Ram. The one she’d said to read once he was back in Ram, for good, back with his family and friends and stupid orange trees and lake.

Sweat on his forehead, Tobin crouches on all fours and digs through the pebbles surrounding him. Twigs, feathers, shells, no parchment. Cold water seeps through his overalls and pants and the current threatens to knock him over as he crawls a few inches deeper into the water. Still no parchment. There’s a small boulder in front of him, so he punches it and swears loudly when it hurts.

“Mm, Kliff told me someone was fucking around here.” Tobin leaps toward the voice. Of course it’s Gray, standing ankle-deep in the water next to him. How does he always catch Tobin at his jumpiest?

“Can you at least give me a warning before you sneak up on me?” Tobin runs his hand through his hair. Gray glances to his side before he laughs.

“Tobes, it’s not ‘sneaking up’ when you’ve been looking for the same damn paper for a good five minutes.”

“You were here this whole time and you didn’t say anything?!”

“C’mon man, I wouldn’t do that to you. I said hi and you didn’t hear me, so I just…” Gray holds his jaw as if thinking, “how do you say it… gave up.” Gray cackles and slings his arm around Tobin’s shoulders like he’s done since they were five. Tobin pushes him away.

“Gray, I need to look for that parchment. If I lose it, Ma’s gonna kill me.” Tobin’s eyes burn and his chest is tight as he begins to crouch, but Gray catches his elbow.

“Hey Tobes,” Gray’s voice is quieter than before, and softer, but firm. He lifts Tobin up, and Tobin cries.

He can hardly tell the difference between his tears and river water as his face hits what feels like fever-warmth. He thinks he’s shuddering, but he doesn’t really know, and he has the urge to glance back down into the water for that stupid piece of parchment but as his legs weaken, the current nearly uproots him from the ground. He feels Gray sit him down on the dew-cold grass up-shore, and that stupid, wide hand of his on his back as he shakes and shakes and shakes, before that wide hand moves away and Tobin jerks around to see, to pray that Gray is still there, not leaving him like Tobin left his family, like the one paper promise he’d made his mother—

—and Gray’s hand rests on his back once again, other hand holding his wool tunic in front of Tobin’s face. “You can use it to dry off a little.”

Through tears, Tobin grabs the tunic. He’s glad Gray explicitly stated what to use it for, because he looks at it in a tear-smothered daze for a moment before Gray’s words trigger his memory and he drags it across his face. Gray snickers a little, quietly and a little muffled, but he hears it nonetheless and even though tears still run down his face, Tobin can’t help but laugh too. He drapes it around his neck after, and his eyes begin to dry, only the last of his tears rolling down his cheeks before he swipes them away.

“I don’t like crying in front of you,” Tobin mutters into the corner of the tunic, now damp with tears and cold water. “Nope, scratch that,” he sniffs loudly and unattractively, “I don’t like crying around anyone.”

“Well, I know this won’t be much in ways of comfort,” Gray says as he shifts to face Tobin head-on, “but at least I’m not Alm.”

Gray pushes Tobin a little too hard, and he scowls. Gray smiles sheepishly. “Too much?” he asks.

Tobin nods, and from there they sit in the muffled quiet of the river and occasional crack of branches from the tree behind them. At some point, a shiver rouses Tobin from his meditative state and he realizes that Gray is quivering next to him.

“Oh shit, Gray, you need to tell me when—”

“Will you tell me why you were crying?” Gray asks. His arms are crossed over his chest in a futile attempt to keep warm. Gray’s stupid black top is nearly falling off his right shoulder, but he must be too numb to feel it. Tobin unstraps the top of his overalls and hands him his own tunic before Gray can stop him.

“Put it on,” Tobin says, “and I’ll tell you.” Gray does. It’s a little too short for his torso, and Tobin almost laughs, but the loose top of his overalls hang limp around his waist, so he’s no place to do so.

“I’m homesick,” Tobin says. “And, uh, I lost that note my mother gave me, but you already know that, and I guess it just made me feel homesick, and...” Tobin feels like he’s babbling and shuts up. He’s shivering now—or just notices it—and Gray looks him over.

“Hey Tobin,” Gray puts his hand on Tobin’s shoulder, “just for the record, I am too.”

Somehow, Gray’s gloved palm is warm as it is rough. Tobin continues to shiver, but he smiles.

“And,” Gray pauses, “sometimes I just wanna up and leave and run back to Ram as fast as possible. Steal a carriage, even, if it sped everything up. Hell, take Clive’s own.” Suddenly, Gray looks around. Then he chuckles. “Had to make sure that For guy wasn’t around. He’d take me seriously.” Gray’s eyes glow.

Tobin mumbles “Forsyth”, then, “let’s go back to the tent. We look ridiculous.”

Gray complies, and they both change clothes and bundle themselves in blankets. They’re made of wool, and Gray recounts how shocked Clair was at learning where wool came from.

“She thought it meant they killed the sheep, so at first she panicked,” Gray explained between snorts. “She was all, ‘but they’re so precious, Gray! How could you commoners do this!’ And then I explained they shaved the fur off, not all the skin too, and you could see the relief in her eyes. You know that wide smile she gets? The really wide one, when she’s riding her pegasus? That’s what it looked like.” Gray’s smile looks just as wide, and it’s contagious. Tobin grins even as anxiety blooms inside him. Gray likes Clair; he knows that. Gray’s been abundantly clear about that. So of course, Tobin likes Clair too. When they were little, Gray took up sword fighting, so Tobin did too. This wasn’t much different.

But when Gray smiles wide at the thought of Clair, Tobin doesn’t. When Tobin thinks about it, he realizes he felt the discomfort when he and Gray first learnt the sword.

Gray scoots a little closer to Tobin on the bed. “It’s really fuckin’ cold,” he says and leans his head on Tobin’s shoulder. Tobin stiffens a little, then pulls his blanket over both their heads.

It’s warmer that way, but his stomach churns. It’s not bad. In fact, it’s almost pleasant, like that one time he won the race against Kliff, but had to sit for an hour after because he was so dizzy.

He smells his mother’s lye soap again on Gray’s shirt, even though there’s no reason to. It’s not a good smell, necessarily, but not bad either, and very much like home.

“Remember when our mas did the laundry together?” Gray says.

“I was thinking of that earlier, actually.” Tobin giggles, which turns to a cough in the stiff cold air. He can see his breath waft in front of him, stark against the dark gray of the blanket. “Remember when we knocked over one of the bins?”

Gray chuckles. “How’d we do that? Our weights together couldn’t’ve been more than that neighbor’s sheep dog.”

“Well, running full-force into it could’ve had something to do with it,” Tobin says dryly. “There was mud on my favorite shirt for weeks!”

“Well, that’s your own fault. You could’ve cleaned it, Tobi, but there you were, too lazy to clean the one shirt you actually liked—” Tobin laughs as he pushes his elbow into Gray’s stomach.

Gray doubles over and Tobin is about to shove him off the bed when Gray wheezes. “Mila! Gray, are you okay?” He hadn’t expected to jab him that hard, just maybe a little push—

\--and Gray shoves into Tobin full force, grinning. Tobin wants to shout “faker!” but his head hits the hard soil floor before he gets the chance. And now, their roles are reversed; he sees Gray hovering over him blurrily, and Tobin thinks he’s apologizing, but he can’t hear anything clearly as his senses fade before him. The last thing he remembers is Gray’s hand on his shoulder.

Then he’s on his bed with Gray adjusting the folded blankets beneath his head and Tobin shoots up. He immediately regrets it, and his hearing almost goes out again, but Gray presses a cold cloth to his head. His eyebrows are furrowed.

“Hey Tobes, can you tell if you remember what just happened?”

Tobin frowns. “You bashed my head into the floor, dumbass. Hard enough to make me pass out.” He crosses his arms.

Tobin sees the glint in Gray’s eyes and knows he’s about to spout some kind of bullshit. “Whaddya expect with these muscles, Tobes.” Gray flexes and Tobin rolls his eyes. “But seriously, man, are you okay? I didn’t mean to do that.” Gray sits down next to him and steals the corner of the blanket.

“I’m fine, dumbass,” Tobin says. The good-sick churn from earlier comes back as Gray leans against him. It’s not like they haven't invaded each other’s space since  
childhood, but somehow it tickles Tobin’s chest, reaches his throat, and he blurts, against his better judgment, “do you have to do that?”

Gray pulls away to study Tobin’s face. “Do what?” Gray asks. Tobin feels like he’s missing something in the way Gray speaks. He doesn’t know what, so he decides to ignore the question and change the subject for a good measure.

“Gray,” Tobin says, sucking in his breath, “I have to apologize.”

“What? Why?” This time, Tobin knows Gray sounds confused.

Tobin rubs his arm as he speaks. “So, remember when we were younger. In Ram,” Tobin adds as if Gray would forget, “and we were talking.”

“Mm, Tobone, you’re gonna need to be a lot more specific than that.” Gray gives him that wry smile, and Tobin snorts with annoyance.

“Let me finish talking, Gray.” Tobin takes a deep breath. “So we were talking a while back, and you said you wanted to leave Ram. And go adventuring.” Gray’s face is blank.

“And I said that you—we, I guess—couldn’t. Because it was too hard. And I just wanted to say I’m sorry, for putting you down like that. Because I was thinking, and you really wanted to do that didn’t you?”

There’s that smile again. The Gray smile. Maybe other people do it, but to Tobin, it’s his exclusively. “What?” Tobin says. His arms are crossed again.

Gray shrugs. “Tobes, don’t worry about it. Of course I wanted to get out, and honestly, I don’t remember talking to you about that, but I kinda just assumed I’d stay there, yaknow?”

“But,” Tobin feels tears well up against his will. “I just didn’t want to make you lose hope. I’m sorry for making you feel like there wasn’t any.”

Tobin feels Gray’s stupid-wide hand on his back for the second time today. “Hey Tobin,” he says gently. “You’re a dumbass.”

“Hey!” Tobin exclaims. He wipes away a few escaped tears.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Gray says. “You never made me feel that way. And honestly Tobin,” –there’s that damn smile again—“I think you’re way too clueless to make such huge leaps in the first place.”

“Oh come on, Gray.” Tobin covers his face in the blanket.

“Well,” Gray sighs jokingly, “if you need to hear it, I forgive you for something you never did in the first place.”

Tobin huffs a laugh and leans sideways on the bed. Gray follows and they stare up at the firelight flickering on the tent fabric. Tobin doesn’t know how much time passes before Gray speaks.

“Tobin, there’s something else I think you need to hear, though.” Tobin’s heart seems to drop and lodge in his throat at the same time. Did he do something wrong? What did he do wrong? Tobin hopes he doesn’t look as panicked as he feels. He hopes he looks calm, collected, like how Gray looks almost always.

“Alright, what is it?”

Gray turns to face Tobin. “You know when we were wrestling?”

Tobin nods.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Tobin.”

Tobin laughs. “No shit, man. Of course I know that.” Suddenly Gray is very close. Eye to-eye close. Noses-almost-touching close. The good-sick churn is back. Tobin’s face goes red.

“I had something else in mind,” Gray whispers. Gently, gently Gray slips his hand onto Tobin’s neck. His skin tingles under Gray’s fingers. Tobin can’t stop staring at Gray’s eyes. They’re so dark, sometimes Tobin can hardly tell what's pupil and what’s not. Now is one of those times. He stares even as Gray closes his eyes, and even as  
their lips touch, and then Tobin pushes him away, and Gray stares at him. Something crosses his face, but Tobin can’t identify it.

“Sorry,” Gray says casually, as if he hadn’t just kissed his best friend. As if he hadn’t admitted to planning it.

“I thought you liked Clair!” Tobin sits up. “I –you’re always talking about Clair, and her smile, and—” Gray laughs quietly. His hands are both at his sides now.

“Well, don’t you too?”

“What does that even mean, Gray?”

“It means,” Gray sits up and close enough for the good-sick, “that you talk about Clair a lot, and say you like her, but there’s nothing to back up for it.”

Tobin steams. “But you—”

“Actually like her? Yeah. She’s gorgeous. Anyone’d be lucky to have her.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” Tobin blurts.

“Tobes, are you jealous? Because it’s understandable, I am a pretty fine specimen, but—”

“Gray!” Tobin yells a little more loudly than intended. He hopes no one else heard.

“Stop avoiding the question!”

Gray exhales. “Okay,” he says he opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it again. His eyes harden and then widen in the span of a second, and he speaks.“You’ve got those beautiful eyes, and you smell kinda like brown sugar. I think that’s my imagination but it’s still there. And you’ve got that stupid middle part and you pull it off, Mila! And you’re so forgiving and put up with Kliff’s moods and my bullshit all the time, and you support Alm even when you’re jealous of him, and you kinda just,” Gray gestures, “have warmth. Like, you’re a fire. But one that you know, you can like, hug.”

Tobin’s face is hot. “Smooth,” he says. A beat. “Also, you’re lying.”

Gray laughs. “Can you really not feel it?” he asks, and his face is as close as it was before. Tobin can feel the tingle of Gray’s breath on his lips, and this time, Tobin kisses him. He feels his chest lighten and his heart tighten, and the conflicting sensations are so much that all he can do is laugh.

They part together this time, and Tobin laughs again until he realizes just how right it felt. So right, that it’s scary. But he’s not going to say it, because Gray never will, because Gray only likes him. Just likes, the way he likes the village girls they meet. And Tobin nearly cries again at the thought, but he still smiles stupidly, because at least he likes him, isn't that enough? He can feel the butterflies—anxiety, happiness, anticipation, and Gray cups his cheek.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re easier to read than a book?” Gray asks quietly.

“I mean, no one around here can read, but yes, along those lines.”

“And do you want to hear what I see?”

Slowly, Tobin nods.

“I see,” Gray leans back a little, “that you’re scared.” The very word leaves Tobin stiff. “And, that you’re hopeful.”

Tobin looks away, because he doesn’t know what else to do, and then Gray asks,

“Do you know how I know this?”

Tobin shakes his head.

“It’s because,” Gray says, “I’m feeling the same way now.”

Tobin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and meets Gray’s eyes.

“What does that really mean, Gray?” he says, and hopes he looks braver than he feels.

“That means,” Gray blows his hair out of his face, “that I know you love me.” Tobin’s eyes widen. He knew, he knows, it’s true, but hearing it aloud is jarring. Especially since no one tells another person, ‘hey, I know you’re in love with me.’ Except for, apparently, Gray. Of course out of anyone, Gray would do that. And Tobin reels. His chest is tight again, heart pounding. Somehow, hearing those words elicits the same fear in him as a sniper ambush, but he doesn’t run.

Then, he realizes.

“You love me?” He thinks his voice cracked, but he isn’t sure now, because all he can see is Gray. Gray’s eyes, the Gray in Ram, the Gray next to him, and Gray nods and says, simply,

“Of course, dumbass.”

And Tobin feels like he can face the world.

**Author's Note:**

> [fire emblem blog;)](https://lesbian-florina.tumblr.com/)


End file.
